EU Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn discussed EDCTP with Bill Gates

Poverty-related diseases and the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership were discussed by Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, EU Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, with Mr Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in Brussels on Monday 23 January 2012.

According to the EC news item, Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn paid a warm tribute to EDCTP after the meeting stressing the EU’s commitment to global health, the importance of international collaboration and innovation, and the success of the EDCTP programme:

"Success stories exist and should inspire us. The European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) is one of them. Created in response to the global health crisis caused by the three main poverty-related diseases: AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, EDCTP has effectively paved the way to potential breakthrough treatment. On this occasion, I would like to thank again the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for their partnership with EDCTP and their support for other critical global health research and development projects.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is an important strategic partner for EDCTP and directly provides substantial co-funding for projects on HIV/AIDS, malaria in pregnancy and tuberculosis treatment under the EDCTP programme.

• In 2006 BMGF and EDCTP launched a joint call for proposals for Capacity Building in Preparation for the Conduct of Preventive HIV Vaccines Trials. Following the launch of this joint call in 2006 funding was awarded to 6 proposals. The total value of the BMGF contribution is €6.6M.
• Following the call for Support of clinical trials, capacity building and networking in malaria in pregnancy (Malaria in Pregnancy Consortium), BMGF supported all three African grants with a total of €5.3 M, while also supporting the Malaria in Pregnancy Consortium to conduct studies in Asia and Latin America.
• The Pan African Consortium for the Evaluation of Antituberculosis Antibiotics (PanACEA) established following a brokering call in 2007, consists of three studies:
  1) Rapid Evaluation of Moxifloxacin in Tuberculosis – REMox TB
  2) Rapid evaluation of high-dose rifampicin and other rifamycins in tuberculosis - HIGHRIF
  3) Evaluation of a novel TB drug (SQ109) to shorten and simplify TB treatment – SQ109
  These three studies receive support from BMGF to a total amount of €2.2M.

The total amount of support from BMGF is €14.1M.

More information
Link to the complete EC news item
Link to the BMGF website
Joint call on HIV/AIDS (2006)
Link to EDCTP project profiles for AfrEVacc, CATSA, CHIVTUM, HIVTAB, PedVacc, TAMOVAC I (Bakari)
Malaria in Pregnancy call (2007)
Link to EDCTP project profiles for MiPPAD, Ter Kuile, and D’Alessandro
PanACEA call (2007)
Link to EDCTP project profiles for REMox TB, HIGHRIF, and SQ109